Leonard Carder has over five decades of experience in
representing Taft-Hartley trust funds associated with a wide
variety of international and local unions. We are counsel to
approximately twenty-five Taft-Hartley pension and welfare
benefit plans covering members of the International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU), UNITE HERE (Union of Needletrades,
Industrial and Textile Employees/Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees), International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers (IBEW), International Union of Elevator
Constructors (IUEC), Marine Firemen Oilers & Wipers (MFOW),
Masters, Mates & Pilots (MMP), the Seafarers International
Union-Pacific District (SIU-PD), and others. We are also
counsel to several single-employer employee benefit plans,
and advise our public sector clients with respect to benefit
coverage under Cal PERS and other state and local public
employee benefit plans.
Our firm routinely handles the full panoply of compliance and
transactional matters which face defined benefit and defined
contribution pension fund trustees, as listed in Parts II-VII
of the Request for Proposal. These matters include attendance
at all regular or special call trust fund meetings, plan
drafting and qualification, preparation of summary plan
descriptions, review and drafting of service provider
contracts, fiduciary liability policies and investment policy
guidelines, review of benefit claims and appeals, review of
Qualified Domestic Relations Orders and Qualified Medical
Child Support Orders, assistance with plan audits and annual
tax filings, withdrawal liability matters, plan mergers and
terminations, and trust fund arbitration and litigation.
Our trust fund litigation is extensive: in addition to a full
caseload of collection and lien & subrogation matters, we
have handled numerous cases in federal district and appellate
courts involving novel issues under ERISA, including
Manufacturers Life Insurance Company v. East Bay Restaurant
and Tavern Retirement Plan, 57 F. Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal.
1999), a case of first impression holding that state escheat
laws applied to pension plans are preempted by ERISA, and
Barncord v. San Francisco Culinary, Bartenders and Service
Employees Pension Fund, upholding an amendment to a
pension plan’s disability retirement provisions against a
challenge brought by a plan participant. We have also
participated as co-counsel in securities fraud actions
brought by pension trust funds, and in class actions against
the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries brought by health &
welfare trust funds.
We have assisted in the design and negotiation of several
innovative Taft-Hartley benefit plans, including
multiemployer profit sharing/401(k) savings plans,
“supplemental welfare” plans (to fund cost of living
increases for pensioners), child/elder care plans, education
and training plans, legal services plans, and retiree health
plans. In 2001, we wrote a ballot initiative amending the San
Francisco City and County Employees’ Retirement Plan that was
passed by the City’s voters in November of that year. During
the 2002 negotiations between the ILWU and the Pacific
Maritime Association (PMA), we met with the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corporation to obtain approval for novel changes in
the benefit structure and funding of the ILWU-PMA Pension
Plan. In 2005, we worked closely with the BART unions and
management in the design and drafting of a public sector
retiree health benefits plan that is the first of its kind in
California. Through our representation of IBEW Local 1245, we
have participated in proceedings before the Public Utilities
Commission to amend the funding provisions of the PG&E
Pension Plan.
We have also been heavily involved on behalf of several of
our clients in proposed legislation to amend ERISA and the
Internal Revenue Code. For example, working with the National
Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP), we
drafted amendments to the “Pension Security and Transparency
Act of 2005" that were incorporated into the version of that
bill currently under review by the Senate. Leonard Carder
Partner Peter Saltzman has been an invited speaker on ERISA
legislation and other issues at annual meetings of several
organizations, including the National Employment Lawyers
Association and the National Coordinating Committee for
Multiemployer Plans.
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